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According to a new study from the American Association for Cancer Research, early baldness may increase the risk for prostate cancer — particularly among African American man.

Researchers found a 69 percent increased risk of prostate cancer among the men with any form of baldness. Risk for advanced prostate cancer diagnosis more than doubled in men with frontal baldness, an association that was even stronger among African-American men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer before age 60.

"We focused on African-American men because they are at high risk for developing prostate cancer and are more than twice as likely to die from prostate cancer than other groups in the United States," said Charnita Zeigler-Johnson, PhD, research assistant professor at the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, in a press release.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the United States, with higher rates in African-American men, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it is the second most common cause of death in most U.S. men. In 2009, more than 200,000 men in the United States were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 28,000 died.

Breathalyzers May Soon Predict Heart Failure, Obesity

Raed Dweik, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic and his team had at first included heart failure patients as a control group for a study analyzing the breath of patients with kidney failure. Then they realized the heart failure patients had their own unique "breathprint."

"A long time ago, physicians noticed that people with certain diseases, like diabetes, kidney failure, or liver failure, have a different smell to their breath. We knew this, but we didn't have a way to test it," said Dweik.

Another study published this week in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) found that breath tests might be able to identify people who are more likely to develop obesity by detecting a combination of gases that signals a specific microorganism living in the gut.

Coffee May Protect Against Alcohol’s Liver Damage

According to a study published in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism, heavy coffee consumption may actually protect drinkers from alcoholic liver disease.

According to recent research, conditions associated with excessive drinking — fatty liver, hepatitis, and cirrhosis — may be related to an increase in activity in a blood enzyme called gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT).

Researchers at the University of Tampere in Finland found that men who drank heavy amounts of alcohol (an average of 3.5 drinks a day) and more than four cups of coffee per day saw a decrease in GGT levels and, the researchers believe, an increase in protection from alcoholic liver disease.

Doctors Want Limited Patient Access to Electronic Records

According to a new Harris Poll survey, conducted on behalf of the management consulting firm Accenture, less than one-third of U.S. doctors think patients should have full access to their own electronic health records. The survey found that 65 percent of doctors believe their patients should have only limited access to their electronic health records, and 4 percent believe patients should have no access at all.

But why? Stephen Baker, author of The Numerati blog, thinks that patient sensitivity may be to blame for doctors' unwillingness to share medical records. “This would not be a problem if we, as a society, weren't so hypersensitive to 'hurtful' words, and eager to sue in cases of errors,” Baker stated on his blog.